Our NGO sector
Riddled with corruption and irregularities, the NGO sector is a massive complex working for the development of the poor and oppressed. But how far have they made a difference in the life of the poverty stricken people?
Readers and viewers of the media in Bangladesh can hardly be shocked anymore with stories of nepotism, extortion, crime and corruption. They have seen enough. After all that, even the hardest cynic is taken aback with behind-the-scene tales of NGOs, ranging from the giants like Proshika to the middling Samata or the smaller fry like Jubok. The general perception is that the reports revealed so far are merely tips of the iceberg.
Bangladesh and Nepal are considered to be the largest NGO "laboratories" of the world. When the Maoists came to power in Nepal, Western donors were none too pleased and are shying away from the Himalayan country. They failed to keep the social change at bay and now Bangladesh poses as the successful global model for NGO-style development.
A total of 300 crore taka is spent every month through the NGO network in Bangladesh. This has had a far-reaching effect. Not only have the progressive politicians been gulped down and suppressed by the mirage of micro-credit and tools of "development", but Bangladesh has also been projected as a successful business model of development activities.
The supreme confidence of the NGOs is very evident in the manner in which they actively garnered international support for the unelected military-backed caretaker government which took over power in 2007-08. The people have not forgotten those two years and so now, with a democratic government installed at the helm once again, they are keeping a sharp watch on the NGO sector to ensure its accountability, transparency and ethics. Having lost all their earnings to Jubok, its clients are now protesting vehemently. Proshika's employees are rallying regularly to realize their dues. There have even been bloody clashes in Proshka office in Mirpur over NGO ownership. This switch from a humanitarian mindset to bloodthirsty machinations show how these NGOs have taken full advance of the government negligent attitude to build up empires of extortion.
They may have started with non-profit development activities, but the NGOs are no longer willing to hold on to the non-profit aspect of their work. Talk about eating one's of cake and having it too, they want to hold on to the tax exemption facilities of NGOs, but at the same time, want to rake in the profits too through various businesses. They now pose as stiff competition to the existing business houses, having interests in everything from salt production to running private universities. And all this is being done behind a very civil mask. Persons like Kazi Farukh Ahmed, of Proshika who has been running such a schemes for the past 33 years, have virtually opened a new chapter in the country's governance culture. Recently the employees of Proshika revolted and removed Kazi Farukh from the organization. The documented evidence against him offered by the employees give ample indication of what has been going on in the NGO sector down the years.
Like other NGOs, there was gross imbalance in Proshika's salary structure. For example, Kazi Farukh's son Kazi Rubayet was the head of the organisation's computer department. His monthly salary was 98 thousand taka. Ironically, this department always made a loss.
There is no similarity whatsoever between the government salary structure and that of the NGOs. Kazi Farukh sent this son abroad for higher studies all at Proshika's expense. In fact, 99 lakh 74 thousand taka of Proshika's funds were used for this purpose. The employees also state that funds of 25 lakh taka and 64 lakh were also taken from Proshika for Kazi Farukh's other son and daughter. Proshika's funds also went in the direction of Kazi Farukh's wife and other relations. He involved his wife in Proshika Fabrics and appointed his brother-in-law Mir Habibur Rahman as a director of Proshika.
And if Proshika is to be taken as an example, the NGOs do not stop simply at financial irregularities and nepotism; they dabble in the political manipulations too. There are allegations that Proshika's Kazi Farukh invested money and manpower in the nationwide clashes of 2006 where rioters wielded sticks and oars in an unprecedented outbreak of violence. Kazi Farukh was even involved in the "trump card" threat issued by Awami League's General Secretary against the BNP government. The Proshika workers during protests last April and May said that they were forced to take part in political programmes. They were told they would lose their jobs if they didn't take part in the opposition movement at the time.
Then at one point of time Kazi Farukh Ahmed himself formed the party, Oikyabaddha Nagorik Andolan (United People's Movement), and forced the employees to become members. The employees say, "We were told to make out vouchers for funds supposedly used on food for slums dwellers whose homes had been gutted by fire; in actuality these funds were used for political purposes." (Source: New Age, May 22, 2009).
At a meeting of Proshika's governing body (105th meeting, held on May 24, 2009), it was also pointed out that "he [Kazi Farukh] used the organizations funds and facilities for his election purposes. He not only used the two cars of the organisation assigned to him, he used the other vehicles of the organization too for his election purposes and this was against the rule. Till the very last day of the election, he used thousands of persons involved in Proshika's micro-credit programme for four months of the election campaigning of Oikyabaddha Nagorik Andolan." This was termed as a moral crime. Kazi Farukh may have been stopped, but such unethical activities continue.
The NGO world takes up various 'trades' at various times. Right now it is all about 'rights'. In this regard, Samata takes the cake. They work for the land rights of the rural poor. Yet in recent times, the NGO Bureau and the donor DFID have carried out investigations to find that Abdul Kader, Samata's Executive Director, have built a sort of empire for himself, and all in the name of rights for the landless poor. The NGO Bureau served a show-cause notice to Abdul Kader in March this year. In order to avoid facing this notice, Kader had made his brother Amjad Hossain the Executive Director of Samata while he is the 'Founder Chairman'. The NGO Bureau has been taken aback by this clever bit of maneuvering!
There are numerous allegations against Abdul Kader, most of them involving crores of taka. At one point of time he may have been a struggling school teacher in some remote village of Pabna, but now he lives in a massive apartment in Dhanmondi, thanks to his NGO which 'caters' for the needs of the landless poor. Even in the village he has a palace-like home now. The vehicle he uses costs 55 lac taka. In fact, Samata now has six vehicles. He would draw a monthly salary of 59,800 taka, but during his son's wedding he cut 15% off all the employees' salary.
Samata managed to wangle 70 crore taka out of DFID, NORAD and CIDA in the name of establishing the rights of the landless poor in Pabna, Rajbari and Faridpur. Far from improving their quality of life, the landless are in an ever poorer state, while Kader had gone on a whirlwind tour of India by road. He even submitted false information to the Home Ministry to get the permission to visit India in his own car.
Like the other NGOs, Kader too has resorted to shameless nepotism. He purchases mobile phones for all his family members with office funds and the bills are paid by the office too. The several servants in his house are all registered as Samata staff and would receive their wages from the office. Samata also purchased land in various places for staff housing, but all that land has been registered in Abdul Kader's name. In order to make sure there were no hitches in all this, he appointed a close relation, Nurul Islam, as the Samata accountant. Such corruption has been going on for long, but it has only been recently that the donors' eyes opened and they have lodged complaints with the NGO Bureau (PROBE, May 8, 2009). Donor agencies have stopped funding Samata.
As for Jubok, this NGO collected crore of taka in deposits from people of various districts and villages, luring them with lucrative interest rates. Now they are failing to keep their commitment. They also ensnared people with promises of land, taking huge sums of money in this regard. The people, however, have not received the land as committed. Following protests from the victims, the law enforcement agencies are now arresting Jubok members from various places in the country. It was not too long ago, around 1995-95, that the Jubok people would gather for an adda at their small office room at Aziz Super Market, purportedly working as a youth employment society. It was rather shocking then to see the names of these very same persons on the list of corrupt persons drawn up by the caretaker government. They didn't have any magical lamp to make money – they simply cheated the poor people with promises of interest.
Basically speaking, Proshika, Samata or Jubok are merely three chapters in volumes of NGO sector corruption. In the past, Gono Sahajjya Sangstha, the country's second largest NGO, was closed down in the face of demonstrations by the staff against the Chief Executives unethical activities. In most NGOs, while the staff members may be unhappy with the immorality of the head executives, they often chose to remain mum so as not to lose their jobs. The state of Proshika, Samata and Jubok is reflected in the internal affairs of all the other NGOs in the country.
One of the biggest scopes for irregularities in the NGO sector is that this sector has no uniform pay structure and has no connection with the national pay scale. The executive chiefs create pay scales at their will and have it approved by their hand-picked governing body. Even mid-level NGO heads draw monthly salaries of 50 to 60 thousand taka, while the lower staff members get only two to three thousand taka a month.
Foreign tours are another part of the perks for the NGO bosses. The heads of the NGOs and their favoured few spend more time abroad than at home. Their trips are paid from the funds provided for the poor. Other than the persons traveling abroad, no one really knows how these trips are benefiting the organization, the people or the country. The people are still steeped in poverty with no sign of their lot improving, while the NGO-wallas happily line their pockets.
The NGO workers really have no say. The 'project proposals' and the directives of the executive chiefs are the last word. Anyone differing may well lose their jobs. And as the governing bodies are carefully selected by the executive chiefs, they rapidly approve of any discrepancies that may surface. The elected members of the country's local or central government have no scope to display any interest in the NGO activities or proffer their views. Though they are representatives of the people, they have no role to play in the NGO sector. This goes against the very spirit of democracy.
By keeping the people's representatives in the dark, the micro-credit activities of the NGOs have spun out of control. Over the years the various government has tried in all sorts of ways to bring about development at the field level, but the poor remain submerged in poverty. Their entanglement in the debt of micro-credit seems to be one of the main reasons that they cannot extract themselves from this all-pervading poverty. Hundreds of NGOs all over the country have entrapped about four to five crore poor people in the web of micro-credit and these hapless persons spend their lives repaying the loans, taking fresh loans and repaying them again, in an unending vicious cycle.
The micro-credit organizations have built big buildings in Dhaka and other parts of the country. They have established banks, universities and more, but the fate of their clients remain the same. Bangladesh Bank often pressurizes the commercial banks to lower interest rates, but remains silent about the 30% to 40% interest rate imposed by the NGOs on the poor. Micro-credit is now the hot business of these "development organizations". According to Bangladesh Bank sources, till 2009 the Micro-credit Regulatory Authority (MRA) has given permission to 418 organisations to run micro-credit programmes, though 4326 organisations have applied for the same (Aamader Somoy, September 9, 2009). This huge interest among the NGOs to run micro-credit programmes indicates just how profitable the business is for them. But the cruel side of micro-credit has been revealed in media reports. This recent report is enough to show the horrors in the sector:
When a client failed to pay two installments on her micro-credit loan, workers of the NGO Gram Bikash Kendra in Dinajpur came and took away her furniture. They auctioned off items for 1,400 taka.
About nine months ago, Rekha Begum of the village Chakboalia Koyalpara in Palashbari union of Parbatipur upazila, took a 7000 taka loan from Gram Bikash Kendra. She was to repay it within a year. She was to pay weekly installments of 175 taka. In order words, she would be repaying a total of 9,100 taka in exchange for the loan of 7000 taka. Rekha had repaid 6,475 taka in 37 installments. Looking for some extra earnings, Rekha and her husband came to Dhaka before Eid. Not getting their regular installments, Gram Bikash Kendra's field worker Kohinoor Begum and manager Anwar Hossain broke into Rekha's house in her absence and took away her pots and pans, furniture and other items. These were later sold in an auction. Jasim Uddin, Deputy Director of Gram Bikash Kendra, says, "The condition of taking the loan is to repay it at all costs. We had nothing else to do." (Prothom Alo, September 13, 2009)
One of the failures of Bangladesh's parliamentary system of government is that there is no discussion in parliament about the exploitation carried out through micro-credit and the other corruption and irregularities in the NGO sector. Even during the 1/11 crusade against corruption, the NGOs remained above board, with only a few exceptions. Yet since the NGOs claim to be working for the "people's development", the people's representatives should know full well what is going on in the sector. This calls for amendments of the law so that it is compulsory for the executive boards of all NGOs to include at least one elected representative of the people. This will increase the accountability of development economics.
NGOs need to be transparent and accountable not in the case of financial dealings alone; they must have social accountability too. This must be both external and internal. This calls for a free flow of information. Data relating to NGO accounts, the composition of the executive board, employment policy, pay scale, programme expenditure, justification of the projects and other vital factors are not made public, though all this is being done in the name of the public. Importance must be placed on the right to know. If the people are the beneficiaries of NGO activities, then they should have a say in what projects should be taken up and how these should be implemented.
The governing bodies or executive councils or the advisory councils of the NGOs are unable to stem the moral degeneration in this sector. On the contrary, they have become party to corruption. It is the same handful of civil society members who invariably pop up on the boards of the various NGOs. And most of them, directly or indirectly, are the owners of one NGO or the other. Some examples will clarify the matter further.
We have already pointed out the dubious activities of Kazi Farukh Ahmed. While carrying out unethical activities through Proshika, he was at the same time a member of the trustee board of CPD, the topmost think tank of the country. Then everyone is aware of the cold war in the NGO empire between Kazi Farukh Ahmed and Brac's Fazle Hasan Abed. Yet Abed was a trustee board member of CPD alongside Kazi Farukh and still remains so. In Brac's 16-member governing body, Taherunnessa Abdullah's position comes right after Abed. Ms. Abdullah is also a member of Ain O Salish Kendra's executive council. Mr. Abed is also the Chairman of the Forum for Drinking Water, with Taherunnessa Abdullah its Vice President. The latter is also the Chairman of ASA. Fazle Hasan Abed is also advisor to the reputed education-related NGO, CAMPE. CAMPE's Member Secretary is Rasheda K Chowdhury. One of BRAC's directors Manzur Ahmed is a council member of the organization. Fazle Hasan Abed is also Chairman of Ain O Salish Kendra. Ain O Salish Kendra's Executive Director is Sultana Kamal who is also Treasurer of TIB. TIB member Khan Sarwar Morshed is Chairman of Nagorik Uddyog. And Hamida Hossain, one of the founders of Ain O Salish Kendra, is a member of Nagorik Uddyog.
Khushi Kabir is a board member of CPD and she is also a member of Samata's advisory committee. The corruption of Samata's Abdul Kader has already been exposed. There were two top economists of the country on Samata's advisory committee too – Dr. Atiur Rahman and Dr. Abul Barakat. Yet these two are always making lofty statements in the media against corruption. Dr. Atiur Rahman, teacher of Dhaka University and presently the Governor of Bangladesh Bank, and Dr. Abul Barakat, presently Chairman of Janata Bank, both have research organizations – Samunnay and HDRC respectively. After Dr. Atiur Rahman was made Governor Bangladesh, a paediatrician was made Chairperson of his research organization. This was Dr. Shahana Rahman, Dr. Atiur Rahman's wife.
Coming to HDRC, this organization has in its advisory committee another professor of Dhaka University, Shafiq-Uz-Zaman. Shafiq-Uz-Zaman is also on the advisory committee of Khushi Kabir's NGO Nijera Kori. Khushi Kabir is also the Chairperson of the Executive Council of another renowned NGO, ALRD. HDRC Chief Advisor Abul Barakat, in turn, is a member of ALRD's executive council. Even Samata's Abdul Kader is a member of ALRD's executive council.
There are innumerable such instances of overlapping. Taking funds in the name of the rural poor, the NGOs create a network among a select elite of the capital city, accommodating each other in their respective boards and committees. Their "I love you-you love me" policy is responsible to a great extent for the moral turpitude in the sector.
A few years ago when the massive NGO Gono Sahajjya Sangstha collapsed, everyone held its Executive Director FR Mahmud Hasan responsible. But at the time, this organization had in its executive Council Dr. Muzaffar Ahmed, Dr. Anisuzzaman, Selina Hossain, KM Sobhan, Rasheda K Chowdhury and other stars of the civil society. Rasheda K Chowdhury was an advisor of the 'anti-corruption' caretaker government. Selina Hossain, is also a member of Samata's executive council. She is also with the much-talked-about Manusher Jonnyo. Though these people are seen everywhere, they do not participate in discussions on the corruption of NGOs. Because of their social standing and connections are they are sometimes knowingly or unknowsly gets exploited by these NGOs.
NGO activism for the indigenous
A section of the NGO network and academia are cashing in on the plight of the ethnic minorities, using them to churn out a multi-million taka seminar-oriented industry
by Altaf Parvez
There are innumerable small ethic groups scattered all around remote areas of Bangladesh. Wherever there is any upheaval in these areas, like incidence of rape, murder or arson, teachers disappear from about 10 to 20% of the classes in Dhaka University. Upon reading the news of these incidents in the morning paper, they rush of to the site. Classes are suspended not just for the day, but for a few consecutive days. After all, the teachers have to visit the area and then take part in press conferences at the local or district press club. They have to participate in human chain programmes. Then they have to draw up "proposals" and meet with the programme officers of donor organisations. Funds will be allocated for research and advocacy regarding the events and the teachers may even travel abroad to speak on the "continuing violation of the rights of the indigenous people in Bangladesh". Then there are the TV talks shows, interviews with various newspapers. It is essential to write columns of the newspapers too while the incident is still fresh. Often the research assistants do this work. Professors and NGOs are so expert at this fast-paced activism that the leaders of the ethnic groups hardly have a chance to speak for themselves. The professors and NGOs sometimes take pity and give the indigenous leaders a chance to sit with them at the workshops. They hardly get the chance, though, to attend conferences at Geneva or Amsterdam.
Indigenous groups are now the hit product in Dhaka's NGO world. These areas populated by ethnic groups are now saturated with NGOs. In Modhupur alone there are 36 NGOs at work. Research work is being churned out like products in a mass production line. These research papers and reports, written in English, first reach the desks of Christian Aid, Action Aid, Oxfam, SIDA, etc, before they reach the local readership. Activism for the indigenous groups is so strong at present that the donors allocate a significantly large portion of their funds for this specific sector. These funds run up to hundreds of crores of taka. In this country where a deputy commissioner has to face so many questions to spend just 100 taka of public money, who is to account for these hundreds of crores of taka being taken in the name of the people, in the name of ethnic minorities? Do the likes of Prof. Muzaffar Ahmed not see these expenditures? Chairmen and members at a grassroots level are torn apart in the media for filching a few bundles of tin meant for relief or for a few kg of VGF rice, but no one is asking about how and why these crores of taka are being spent on 'advocacy projects'.
Till recently the Jumma rebellion had been the focus of this country's activism for indigenous people. Now the Dalit issue has been added. So now no one is free from the long hand of the NGOs and professors – whether they are the Chakmas of Panchhari-Dighinala, the Marmas or the sweepers of Dhaka's Gonoktuli. They don't even let the river people alone.
Paying no heed to the political and economic aspects of the struggle of the indigenous people and the Dalits, these NGOs restrict their activism to seminars, workshops and human chain programmes. They do not really organize these groups to form any movement that can make a tangible difference. They focus their 'activism' on stray incidents like a skirmish over a plot of land, an incident where an indigenous woman has been harassed, where some trees in the hill tracts have been unlawfully felled and so on. They do not question why the tea garden workers comprising a few lakh members of an ethnic minority group, are paid only 25 to 30 taka a day. Their glossy annual reports produced from their plush offices in the capital city have no mention of these exploited tea garden workers. There are some professors, though, who have done consultancy worth crores of taka to determine whether these tea garden workers took part in the liberation war or not! They are not very interested in the poor state of these ethnic minorities and what can be done to retrieve them from this nadir of subsistence.
The most 'glamorous' advocacy at the moment where indigenous activism is concerned is to educate the ethnic groups in their own languages. They are pressurizing the government to ensure that these groups can study in their own languages. This may seem all very nice, but in actuality such a scheme will only marginalize them further. As it is they are small in numbers, not politically organized and are already lagging behind in the job market due to lack of English and Bengali skills. Now if they are educated in their own languages with no Bengali or English, will they ever get government or any other jobs? It would be hard anyway for the government to meet such demands. For example, in Sylhet, children of two or three ethnic groups come to study alongside the Bengali children. How will the government appoint separate teachers for them? After all, these ethnic children aren't all bunched up in one class. Of will a separate section be opened for them? The ground reality must be taken into account. But our learned professors just babble on about UN conventions being violated, blah, blah, blah…
As in the rest of South Asia, in Bangladesh too the ethnic minority groups like the Chakma, Marma, Hrishi, Buno, Santal, Patra, Telegu and Kanpuri are not in any good state. But then, crores of Bengalis are also in a poor state. This is a class issue. This is not a Bengali versus indigenous people issue. This is a conflict between the wealthy and the politically weak poverty stricken people. These NGOs and their professor activists have been wrongly characterizing the problems of the ethnic groups. As a result, the problems are not being solved.
It has long been said that the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts are victims of Islamic aggression. It is being pictured that way because the people from the plains going there are mostly Muslim. But in neighbouring Tripura where there are no Muslims, why are the Tipuras and the Barmans suffering? Is there Hindu aggression there? That is not the case.
The fact is that the areas populated by the indigenous people face the negligence of a colonial-type administration. In Rajshahi, about 90% of the Santals are landless. At the same time, in the same place, at least 60% of the Bengalis are also landless. It does not really pinpoint the problem simply saying that the Santals are losing their land to the Bengalis. The country's socio-economic state has created a class of land-grabbers which will eventually lead to 90% of the population being landless and the state machinery will encourage this. This deep-rooted problem will not be solved by shedding crocodile tears for the indigenous people. It will not be solved by sitting in air-conditioned conference rooms and speaking for the rights of the ethnic minorities for cheap kudos as lofty seminars.
It is in a very skilled and deliberate manner that the indigenous people and the Dalits are being misguided. After all, rather than allowing these suppressed people to burst out in an effective struggle as in other South Asian countries, the NGO-network is entrapping them in sterile seminar rooms. In this manner, the 'civil society' is running a business worth crores of taka, year after year. They cash in on the dances and the handloom of the indigenous people, focus on their religious conversion, on their areas being used for tourism. But they have no time for a united struggle of the indigenous and Bengali people against exploitation and discrimination.
The writer can be contacted at altafparvez@yahoo.com
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